This document describes the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Site environment. It is updated each year and is intended to provide a consistent description of the Hanford Site environment for the many National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents being prepared by DOE contractors. No statements of significance or environmental consequences are provided. This year's report is the sixteenth revision of the original document published in 1988 and is (until replaced by the seventeenth revision) the only version that is relevant for use in the preparation of Hanford NEPA, State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) documents. The two chapters included in this document (Chapters 4 and 6) are numbered to correspond to the chapters where such information is typically presented in environmental impact statements (Weiss) and other Hanford Site NEPA or CERCLA documentation. Chapter 4.0 (Affected Environment) describes Hanford Site climate and meteorology, geology, hydrology, ecology, cultural, archaeological, and historical resources, socioeconomics, occupational safety and health, and noise. Chapter 6.0 (Statutory and Regulatory Requirements) describes federal and state laws and regulations, DOE directives and permits, and presidential executive orders that are applicable to the NEPA documents prepared for Hanford Site activities.

This project initiates an integrated-landscape conservation approach within the Northern Cumberlands Project Area in Tennessee and Kentucky. The mixed mesophytic forests within the Cumberland Plateau and Mountains are among the most diverse in North America; however, these forests have been impacted by and remain threatened from changes in land use across this landscape. The integrated-landscape conservation approach presented in this report outlines a sequence of six conservation steps. This report considers the first three of these steps in two, successive stages. Stage 1 compares desired future conditions (DFCs) and current prevailing conditions (CPCs) at the landscape-scale utilizing remote sensing imagery, remnant forests, and descriptions of historical forest types within the Cumberland Plateau. Subsequently, Stage 2 compares DFCs and CPCs for at-risk forest types identified in Stage 1 utilizing structural, compositional, or functional attributes from USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis data. Ecological indicators will be developed from each stage that express the gaps between these two realizations of the landscape. The results from these first three steps will directly contribute to the final three steps of the integrated-landscape conservation approach by providing guidance for the generation of new conservation strategies in the Northern Cumberland Plateau and Mountains.